Freezing or Canning Fresh Vegetables and Fruits

This is the time of year when gardens and fruit trees are bursting with goodness. This is what we have been waiting for all year. Last winter it seemed as if eating fresh vegetables was just a dream and now they are here!
There has been a movement towards growing and/or buying local. If you know where your food comes from, you are more likely to eat it. If you get the kids involved they develop an interest and will, most likely, eat what they have taken care of and watched grow.

(This isn't always true: My oldest daughter was about 4 when she decided she wanted to plant purple beans because purple is her favorite color. We planted them, watched them grow, oohed and aahed over them and finally picked them. I cooked them for supper that night and during cooking, they turned green. There was no way she was going to eat them. They were not purple anymore.) A lesson learned from both sides.

The top of my vegetable list is always tomatoes. A garden grown fresh tomato cannot be beaten by anything we will find in the store. Living in Montana would be greater if we had the weather of California or Florida. We could have year round gardens. Tomatoes are one of the easiest vegetables to either freeze or can. They can be frozen whole and when they are needed simply thaw them out, remove the skins and use in any recipe. The best method of freezing means that individual tomatoes are put on a cookie sheet, frozen solid, then put into individual portions in freezer containers or freezer bags. Canning is a bit more labor intensive and involves putting the whole tomatoes in boiling water for around 30 seconds to a minute then removing them from the boiling water and plunging them into an ice water bath. This makes it easier to remove the skins. Then the tomatoes are sliced or diced into a big bowl. Let them sit while the jars are readied for canning.

Because many people in our part of the country are a self reliant bunch, our stores always have canning supplies available so it's a up to you as to what size jar you need. I usually use pint jars because they are easier to handle and I can always use as many pints of tomatoes as is needed. As you are getting the jars and tomatoes ready to can, fill up the water bath canner with water and put the rack in the bottom. Start the burner and bring the water to a boil.

Always remember to sterilize the jars and lids before filling with tomatoes. When canning tomatoes it's easier to have a wide mouth canning funnel. These are great for putting the tomatoes into the jar and keep the rim of the jar clean. When filling the jar leave 1/2" headspace at the top; i usually fill the jar to the bottom of the canning funnel. When all the tomatoes are in the jar put the sterilized lids on then immerse them into the boiling water of the water bath canner. Pints are processed for 35 minutes and quarts for 45 minutes. After processing, remove them from the canner to the counter and let cool. The fun part is listening to the lids "pop" as they seal. You can test for a seal by pressing down on the center of the lid. If the lid gives it means the tomatoes are not sealed. These can be put into the refrigerator and used as soon as possible. Which (at our house) usually means that we have chili or spaghetti for supper!

Another way of sealing jars is to pressure can them. My husband is the king of pressure cooker users! When we were growing up there were no microwave ovens so a quick way of getting supper on the table was to use a pressure cooker. My mother never used one because they freaked her out. She was always afraid that the thing would explode...and she passed that fear onto me. However.....my husband's family always used their pressure cooker. My mother in law worked outside the home, which for her time, (she's now 90 years old) was pretty amazing. So at my husbands home getting supper on the table meant using a pressure cooker. Now that we are grandparents and helping raise grandchildren the pressure cooker gets a lot of use, in fact we have three pressure cookers of various sizes for various uses. We don't pressure can, but that is always an option. The recipe book that comes with the cooker is a good source for information as to how to pressure can.

Another veggie that I love is the green/red/yellow pepper. This would be the sweet variety. I'm not much for hot and spicy foods and guess what....I'm married to a man that LOVES hot and spicy. It has taken me 32 years to convince him that not everyone likes the same thing he does and could he please add his hotness and spiciness to his own plate and leave the rest of us out of it? Usually when I receive peppers the dinner of choice is stuffed peppers. YUM! If I ever have too many peppers, I can either freeze the stuffed peppers or just dice up the extra peppers and freeze on cooky sheets until frozen then putting the peppers into freezer containers or bags. They are then easily used in casseroles, soups or stews. I also make what I call stuffed pepper casserole which is basically just the recipe for the pepper stuffing with diced peppers then I bake it.

At this time of year there are usually a couple of local people who travel to the Washington/ Oregon area with big trailer rigs and bring back peaches, pears and apples. Then on their way back they will stop in the Flathead Lake area of Montana and load up on some flathead cherries. These people then sell their fruits to the locals, who are like rabid dogs when the truck arrives. FRESH fruit, wow! We bought a box of peaches which needed to ripen for a few days. We just put the whole box into a large bag and let the methane gas (which fruit naturally manufactures) do the ripening. Then it was WE HAVE A BOX OF PEACHES WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING WITH!! We gave a few to my mother in law, gave a couple to a daughter, kept 6 out for us to eat and froze the rest. I love to eat a peach like an apple with the juice flowing down my chin (make sure you have a towel ready!) Another favorite way is to dice up the peach into a cereal bowl, pour half and half or whole milk on it and some sugar and dig in. If you like you can use skim milk and sugar substitute but what fun is that?

Preparing the peaches for the freezer is simple. Always wash the fruit and using a small paring type serrated knife remove the skin. Cut the peach around the middle and use the knife to lightly separate the two pieces.
Have a big bowl at the ready to slice the peaches into. Remove the stem and the pit. Slice each half into six slices and drop them into the big bowl. Keep going in this fashion until all peaches are sliced. At this point use a small amount of lemon juice on the peaches to keep them from browning and sprinkle with sugar (to your taste.) I freeze my peaches in two cup plastic containers. Remember: freezing causes expansion, so leave room in the container between the fruit and the lid. They are then ready for whatever you will need peaches for. Just thaw out and use.

Whenever I receive a box of apples, my mind starts whirling as to what I should do. Of course there are apples left out for eating. The rest is usually made into apple butter or apple sauce. I don't do pies but I will part with apples for my mother to make a pie. I also love apple cake. I have to relate a story about an attempt to make an apple cake and I wanted to substitute the sugar cup for cup with the sugar substitute aspartame. I have always been under the impression that this substitute can be used the same way that sugar can, however, I discovered that it is not so. By the time I got done with the mixing of the cake, it looked like stuffing to be put into a turkey. It totally separated into little bread like nuggets. I tried baking it.....eeewwwww. That was a total flop. So now if a recipe calls for sugar, I use sugar. I save the aspartame recipes for my cookbooks that inform me how to use it .